Looks Like I'm Not the Only One Not Watching

By Prudence, on October 24th, 2011

The Wall Street Journal’s “NBC Unable to Shake Slide in Ratings” says that NBC, which has been in fourth place for years, has continued to go downhill. The only network up in ratings for the same period as last year is…Fox. But FOX is hardly the conservative bastion that Fox News and Fox Business are. Instead, the FOX network has cornered the market on soft edgy. (The hard edgy is over at F/X.)

I may be conservative, but when kids aren’t around, I don’t mind edgy. However, I also don’t mind wholesome, clever, educational, inspiring, or any of the myriad other things television programming can be.

The strange thing is that the article doesn’t address any of the reasons why I no longer watch NBC. In hopes that the NBC/Comcast executives would actually read the comments, here’s what I had to say to them:

I quit watching NBC because of their politicization of their entertainment—taking their abhorrent messaging from MSNBC and inserting it into their “family viewing.” For instance, embedding their “Green Week” propaganda into the script of their dramas and sitcoms. How Orwellian.

On top of that, if their stars are known conservative bashers who make vile jokes about the right on SNL, at award shows and at other venues, does NBC really think I’m going to enjoy watching them for evening relaxation? (Hello Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, to name a few.)

This is all on top of the general decline of network TV that’s apparently ashamed to have any wholesomely written shows. Why must family shows have parents talking/joking about their sex lives? Is it that much of a challenge to write well without thinking about sex? Can our children have a few years of television viewing without that? Is it impossible to come up with a modern-day Ozzie and Harriet or Father Knows Best that tells engaging stories about trying to be a good person and a loving family? Look at society today. Isn’t it obvious that we could use some of these stories to model?

Perhaps if NBC—and other networks—actually hired some conservatives in their programming departments, they might provide some television for the half of the country they currently ignore. That would surely give them a boost in ratings.

Lastly, the final straw that caused us to give up on most television is the constant cancelling of television shows. We’ve been burned so many times, just getting into a show and then poof, it’s mysteriously gone. Why waste the effort to tune in when it’s more likely than not that the show won’t make it a whole season. But then if it does, we’ve missed out on all the early shows and it’s just too much effort to try to catch up now. Why not offer a guarantee that the show will air the full season?

Oh, and quit scheduling your good shows up against your competitors’ best shows. There are many evenings when there is nothing interesting, but a few hours a week, the shows would watch all air at the same time. That ends up being a good thing for us, in that we don’t have our lives devoted to television all night, every night, and can enjoy books, music, videos, and occasionally an on-demand airing of a show that was stupid enough to air when we couldn’t watch it, if we haven’t completely forgotten about it.

Oddly enough, if I’m in the mood for comedy and want to watch an NBC property, I don’t turn to Bravo or Style or A&E. Instead, I’ll watch MSNBC. Now that’s some pure comedy gold.